


Flashbang

by iiskaa



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Hate Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-22
Updated: 2011-07-22
Packaged: 2017-10-21 16:05:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iiskaa/pseuds/iiskaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skywarp gets more than he bargained for when he picks a fight with Rumble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flashbang

**Author's Note:**

> Old fic. Originally posted on my LJ and ff.net in August 2008. A few minor revisions have been made.

It was, in Skywarp's opinion, far too early to be out of his berth, much less on his way to a briefing with his trine mates, but Starscream, shrilly punctilious with a mission to lead, had hunted him down the night before with no other purpose than to lecture him – rather un-selfcritically, even Skywarp could see the irony in it - on responsibility and _his_ presumptive lack thereof. "0800 joors exactly, Skywarp. _Don't be late_." And he didn't want Starscream after him any more than he already was, between the Coneheads screeching for his afterburners over that last prank and the fact he'd crawled in late and hungover for three shifts in as many weeks. Well, he'd show his wingmates. His quarters were less than a breem's walk from the control room and he'd given himself almost twice that long to get there, enough time to stop at the canteen for an energon ration on the way, and wouldn't Starscream be surprised when he showed up _early_ –

CLANK.

He lurched, tripping forward when one leg painfully encountered something solid and unmoving, equilibrium stabilizers kicking in an astrosecond late. He had to put a hand out to steady himself against the bulkhead.

"Hey! Watch where you're going, slag face!"

That shook the confusion from his recharge-fogged CPU. Skywarp looked down at the angry little face glaring at him from mid-thigh level and smirked, "Rumble. I didn't see you down there."

"Yeah, well you might've if you didn't have your aft where your head's supposed to be!"

"Huh? What do you mean by that?"

From the place several paces away to which he'd stumbled – favoring his left side, Skywarp noted with nasty satisfaction – Rumble looked at him incredulously. "I knew you were stupid, but this takes the databank. Aft," he said, pointing. "Head. _You_. Want me to draw you a diagram?"

Oooh, but it was too early to take this from _Rumble_ , of all the slagging mechs. He took a step toward him, fingers twitching.

"Say that again, you little - "

"Skywarp! Come on, mission briefing!" Thundercracker's impatient voice cut him off mid-threat, and he felt a brief tug of fingers on his wingtip as TC hurried by. When Skywarp didn't follow, Thundercracker turned an exasperated look on him – on him and Rumble both – and his voice crackled over Skywarp's private comm. line.

::He isn't worth it. Now hurry the slag up or we'll _both_ be late.::

"Yeah," Skywarp muttered, still glaring at Rumble, "Yeah, TC. I'm right behind you."

And with a final curl of his lip for the sawed-off Cassette, he strode off after his wingmate, aiming a parting kick at Rumble for good measure.

Rumble bit out a curse as he jumped out of Skywarp's way.

 

–

 

Pain shot through his knee.

He'd been leaning against the bulkhead in the hall outside security, lulled by the vibrations running through the hull of the Decepticons' spaceship turned deep-sea headquarters and the muted tingle of electrostatic charge rolling off the huge bank of screens behind the wall, idly watching his chronometer tick off Earth time – 08:57:20 Moscow, 11:57:21 London, 13:57:22 Dar es-Salaam – while he waited for TC's shift to end.

 _Had_ been, until something slammed into his right knee and he staggered away from the wall, forced to wobble on one foot, blindly groping for the bulkhead to keep his balance.

"The _fuck?_ " he said.

Rumble glared over his shoulder at him.

"Think you could take up any more room with your fat aft?"

It took all his very small reserve of self-control not to ask, "What do you mean?"

He might as well not have bothered, because Rumble was still gritting out insults. "...send your useless chassis through a trash compactor."

"Oh, now you're just _asking_ to get your face smashed – "

"Try it!" The Cassetticon planted his feet, arms snapping out on their axles and starting to transform.

That was all the invitation Skywarp needed. He grinned viciously as he advanced on Rumble, hands balling into fists, and was too busy anticipating putting a heel thruster shaped dent in Rumble's skidplate to pay attention to whether or not the corridor remained clear.

But Rumble tilted his head to look past him before he could close in on the little glitch – was looking past him at _something_ , and had stopped transforming, sequence only half-complete. A dark shape glinted in Rumble's ruby-red visor and Skywarp felt a tingle up his backstrut that signaled the encroachment of another mech's EM field.

Distracted, he glanced over his shoulder to see who the new arrival was. Either he'd be beating Rumble to scrap in front of an audience, or –

Soundwave.

So much for a brawl, then, slag it all to hell, and with his luck, the communications officer would hand him his aft for messing with one of the cassettes – it would hardly matter to the overprotective creep that Rumble had _started_ it. Deciding that if he was about to get slagged, he'd rather see the attack coming, Skywarp faced Soundwave, turning his back on Rumble entirely and waiting warily to see what the other mech would do.

Soundwave wasn't moving, at least – not yet – just standing at the bend in the corridor, silent and unreadable. Astroseconds ticked by, two, four, six, eight.

Finally, Soundwave spoke. "Human vessel entering sensor range. Rumble: Report to the command center. Operation: monitor communications."

“Boss!” Rumble whined, but Skywarp heard his arms snap back into place. Soundwave waited for him.

"You're lucky," Rumble hissed, low enough so only Skywarp heard it.

"Yeah, run along with _mommy_."

Rumble's elbow hit his knee again as he stalked past.

 

–

 

He was looking for Starscream. TC was better company, but TC was out on patrol, while Starscream was on base, off shift, and always willing to take advantage of a trinemate bored enough to let him run his vocalizer unchecked for a joor or two. But Starscream wasn't in his quarters or the not-so-“secret” lab he'd set up on a lower level of the ship in an out of the way, unused storage room. So he'd detoured past the brig (empty) and tip-toed by repair bay (wincing at the sound of Hook's voice rising over a chorus from some human opera) before taking his search elsewhere, looking for Screamer or anything to do.

He amused himself by switching on his targeting computer as he poked his head into the control room, knowing it was a long shot. Optics zeroed in on Ramjet, and his HUD flashed: target lock.

He ducked back into the corridor when the Conehead fixed him with a glare and wandered off in the direction of the canteen.

If nothing else, he could grab some energon.

And when he got there, the door hissed open on an apparently empty room, but there was a muffled clanking coming from somewhere to his left. His head turned, his targeting computer pinged. The access panel cover was off an air filtration unit with a compressor that had been glitching up, and peeking out of the aperture were two little feet. Attached to the feet were two little legs, and Skywarp's optics followed them to Rumble's little purple skidplate.

Well, this had potential. Skywarp grinned.

Then he walked straight over to Rumble and kicked him.

"Oh, _sorry_ , Rumble. I didn't see you down there."

There was a muffled curse and the sound of a tool slammed down, then Rumble came out of the crawl space punching and kicking.

"Hey, little buddy - "

"I'll give you little buddy," Rumble snarled, then Skywarp was on his back on the floor and not entirely sure how he got there, with Rumble straddling his cockpit, pounding on him with both fists. He knew it must have looked ridiculous. Rumble, at least, looked ridiculous, little face screwed up in anger, and Skywarp was too entertained by the situation to bother making a serious attempt to shove Rumble off him.

At least not until Rumble managed to pin one of his arms, his other fist cocked back like he meant business, and Skywarp remembered that Rumble was slagging strong for such a little piece of shit.

In the second before Rumble let his fist fly, Skywarp imagined Starscream tripping over his own pedes howling with laughter and Thundercracker just standing there giving him that long-suffering look he hated, listening to him explain how he'd gotten a cracked optic or a broken jaw.

From _Rumble_ , of all the slagging mechs. He'd never live it down. And that just wasn't acceptable. He saw the gap at the top of Rumble's thigh armor and jammed his thumb in, hard.

It was enough to throw Rumble's aim off. He gave a sharp, strangled yelp and lurched forward, fist slamming into the floor next to Skywarp's head.

"That's how you want to play, you slagging exhaust port?" Rumble gasped. His voice was strained, overlaid with static.

Then, before Skywarp remembered to wrench his wrist free, Rumble gathered himself with a hard set to his jaw and reached for an aileron.

"OW! Owowowowow! If you don't _fucking_ let go of my wing – "

"I thought you jets _like_ it – ” And the rest of Rumble's taunt was swallowed in crackling static as sensitive wires stretched to the point of snapping and his vision and audio went lo-fi in response. For about an astrosecond, it only hurt like the pit.

Then it felt in-slagging-credible.

One hand – and he wasn't about to wrench it out of Rumble's grasp now – clenched tight. With the other, he was gripping Rumble's hip so hard he could feel the metal denting under his fingers. He twisted his thumb even deeper into the armor gap without meaning to. Something about the situation had changed, something essential, he didn't know when or why or how and couldn't be bothered devoting the processing power to think about it.

Rumble hitched around the intruding digit with a hot little whimper. There was a tremble to Rumble's lip that made Skywarp's core pulse suddenly.

Yeah, processing power would definitely be wasted on thinking.

So he curled his fingers around the back of Rumble's thigh and gave a bundle of cables buried deeply in the smaller mech's groin a deliberate tug.

–

Skywarp's optics came online, taking in the expanse of ceiling – a smear of dried energon, table and chair legs reaching up in his peripheral vision. A display in the corner of his HUD told him it was 13:41 in Honolulu, 05:11 in New Delhi.

Rumble, perched on his hip in a careless half-straddle, sneered at him.

"You screech like an ungreased gear when you overload."

He was pretty sure he'd been wearing a scrap-eating grin until Rumble dropped that bit of information. Annoyed at being pulled so quickly from his post-interface laze, he lifted his head just enough to glare at Rumble. "Got me mixed up with Screamer?” he asked, and let his head fall back to the floor with a clank.

"As if," Rumble snorted pissily. He levered himself off Skywarp, then leaned down near his audio receptor, a nasty smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. "He's a better lay."

It took Skywarp a second to process that, by which point Rumble was already halfway to the door.

"What was that, you rusted _glitch-head?_ WHAT THE SLAG DID YOU JUST SAY?"


End file.
